The ups and downs of love

Pair of ear ornaments, app. 1800–1900. Indonesia; Sumatra. Silver. Gift of the James and Elaine Connell Collection.

How do you make sure your fiancé is serious? On many of the islands of eastern Indonesia, instead of exchanging engagement rings, men traditionally gave earrings to the women they wished to marry. These functioned as both a promise and a down payment on larger gift exchange at the time of the wedding. In much of Indonesia, a groom’s family’s gifts of metal objects (weapons, jewelry) were traditionally counterbalanced with the bride’s family’s gifts of textiles. Examples of jewelry used in these kinds of exchanges are now on view (until November 24, 2013) in the Southeast Asia galleries of the museum.

The shapes of the earrings in island Southeast Asia could often evoke fertility. In one example from the Indonesian island of Flores said to depict the womb of the ancestral mother. The split oval shape of the gold earrings from Tanimbar and Sumba are compared to the shape of female genitalia.

Enormous silver earrings from the island of Sumatra were worn through the upper lobe of a Karo Batak woman’s ear and then anchored to the cloth of her headdress. With a weight of over a pound each, these heavy earrings are worn with one spiral end facing the front of the face and the other facing the rear. Ethnologists report that one local explanation of this style was that they represented ups and downs of married life.

Becoming Durga

The Hindu deity Durga killing the buffalo demon, 900-1000. India. Granite. The Avery Brundage Collection.

A recent article in the New York Times about the most publicized of India’s rape victims described women of New Delhi taking to the streets to commemorate and mourn the 23-year-old student who died last week. One participant, a 44-year-old mother of two teenage girls pronounced, “We can only tackle this by becoming Durga.” Durga is a fierce warrior form of the divine mother goddess. She is worshiped in India, the Himalayas and Hindu communities throughout the world. Shown here she holds the weapons given to her by many of the the male Hindu gods. The Devi Mahatmya story describes Durga’s defeat of a buffalo demon that terrorized the world, and whom the male gods could not kill. With news headlines blaring horrifying stories, at times it is hard to get past our own unspeakable sorrow and impotent rage. In dark days it is a small token of hope that we may some day transform our outrage into political action and collectively rise up and become Durga, putting an end to the vicious cycles of violence around us.